My desire to write is back, at least for the moment. I know I missed a day a couple of days back, but that had to do more with me not feeling the best that day instead of not wanting to write. Last night I watched Intermedio (2005) and felt ready to write about it this morning once I was up and around. This was the last DVD I have had here at home for well over a month now from Netflix. I will likely watch Prowl next, with the review over at Top Horror Movies Club, and then watch a movie a friend of mine sent to me to watch. It wouldn't play on my DVD player or computer, but it appears to play on my dad's DVD player. I need to get it watched and sent back to her, so will do that this weekend sometime, I promise!

Intermedio starts with with two guys meeting up with some other guy and giving him a lot of money. He opens up a door in the ground that leads into some tunnels. The men are leaving their kids in the truck, expecting to be back. Something attacks them while in the tunnels though, and they never return. Eighteen years later, Malik (Edward Furlong) and Gen (Cerina Vincent) are still wondering what happened to their dads. Gen's boyfriend, Wes (Callard Harris), shows up with a plan. He knows a guy in Mexico that is willing to hook them up with some good drugs on the cheap. This gets mixed reactions from his friends, including Malik's girlfriend Barbie (Amber Benson). They don't really want to become drug dealers, but the money seems to good to pass up at the same time. Wes leads them to the very tunnels that Malik and Gen's dads disappeared in. The tunnels lead to Mexico, which Wes says his guy will meet them halfway. Nothing could go wrong while they are down there though, right?

Intermedio is a low budget film directed by Andrew Lauer. It was released by Asylum, so this worried me a little bit. I haven't thought all their films have been bad, but I can't think of any I have fallen in love with either. I had to wonder if writer Kraig Wenman got the idea for this movie on news reports I recall about tunnels under the U.S./Mexico border. The plot for Intermedio is just okay at best. They are told about the ghosts that may be in the tunnel by Wes. He also tells them that Mexicans are afraid to use the tunnel because of the ghosts, which I find a little hard to believe. They get to the tunnels around a half hour into the film, which leaves a little under an hour left for the movie. It takes a while before they find they guy they want to meet up with. During this time there is some character development, but mostly they are just trying to scare each other. The tunnels I guess are like a maze, even though they don't really do a good job of showing that. Lucky for them though, they have a map. What they don't know is that some guy is following them. When he pours blood out of some kind of vial he wears around his neck, it apparently allows him to control the ghosts. Once the ghosts are out, our group gets picked off slowly, one by one.

Part of the problem for Intermedio was the special effects. There is a scene or two where things get gory, but the effects for those scene, and others, were just not done well. Way too much CGI was used. There was one ghost, played by Paul Cram, that was the best out of all of it. No CGI, just some simple makeup and he looked just fine. The guy that is after them is played by Steve Railsback, who doesn't really get a whole lot of screen time. Despite names that I knew for once in a low budget film, I just found the acting to be okay at best. Edward Furlong sounded like he was losing his voice after a while. Amber Benson had hurt her foot prior to filming, so was in a cast. That seemed silly, watching her walk around with crutches while in underground tunnels. Cerina Vincent was running around in an ever shorting shirt, with no bra on.

For a low budget film, I have watched worse than Intermedio. It still wasn't all that good though. Nothing against the writer, but I really felt this one could have had a much better story attached to it. Maybe the writer, or the director, should have found a better story line for Amber's character once she showed up with a cast on her leg. I don't think it would have been very hard. I know the tunnels were meant for drug running, but why did they have to be that for this movie? Truth is, it wasn't much of a drug run at all. I didn't care much for this one, and from other reviews and average ratings, not many others did either. Maybe worth a watch if you are into one of the actors. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it otherwise. Sometime after the DVD was sent to me, it was added to Netflix's Instant Watch if you are interested in watching it.
2 out of 5 Another reason not to do drugs